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My experience with PaySystems

I've been using PaySystems for over 4 months now, and overall I am disgusted. They aren't as bad as 2checkout, but that's not saying much.

My biggest complaint is the way PaySystems handles recurring charges. I sell monthly subscriptions, so I need to charge my customers each month. PaySystems is supposed to maintain a database of recurring charges for this purpose, but they are dropping my customers as fast as I can gain them. I only have about 50 recurring charges, but just about every week a recurring charge is declined for no apparent reason. Usually the charge goes through on the second or third attempt (5 and 10 days later, respectively), but in the meantime I'm waiting for my money. However, they've dropped two of my customers because the charges were declined 3 times.

The icing on the cake, however, is that today I discovered that PaySystems had dropped 2 of my recurring customers months ago for no reason at all. I only found out about it because another one of their errors led me to look through the records. When I brought this alarming situation to their attention, they replied:

"We have just experienced a database problem which caused this transaction to be removed. We have resolved this problem and everything should be back to normal. Order [#] has been reinserted into the recurring database. Everything should be fine, however, I suggest reviewing your account just to make sure no other transaction have been removed from the recurring database. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this database error. Thank you for your patience in this matter."

They didn't bother to mention whether I will get the money for the charges that should have occured during those lost months.

So if you choose to do business with PaySystems, this is the kind of f-ckup you can expect. If you don't mind doing business with a bank that loses your paycheck now and then, you shouldn't mind PaySystems.

I don't know what the exact situation is with the disappearing recurring charges. If Merchant Support told you there was a database error, then that was the case but I do not know enough specifics about the situation to comment knowledgeably.

Now, as for the recurring charges not going through on the first attempts, and usually going through on the second or third, this is the situation. Many people (65% of all cardholders) maintain a "maxed out" balance on their credit card. Therefore, when a recurring transaction is declined, it is simply because of insufficient funds. When the clients receive the emails stating that the charge has been declined, they than have the opportunity to load up their card for the appropriate amount and let the transaction through. Sometimes, the customers do not bother do load up their card (because there are other priorities or they do not continue to use the service) and all three attempts fail, removing them from the recurring cycle. There are other reasons why recurring transactions decline, but insufficient funds accounts for the bulk.

I hope that as your relationship grows with us, you will understand our system (and it's limitations...if there was a perfect solution, there would be no competitors in this industry) and that our service will begin to meet your expectations. We strive to be the best possible processor available, and I apologize that we seemed to come up short a little here.

If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to shoot me an email with your concerns.

Well, I can't log in to my PaySystems control panel to submit a help ticket because PS's site is not currently responding (which is not uncommon), so I'll take a moment to reply to Mr. Acker here.

It's always alarming when a company spends more time in places like Sitepoint, doing damage control, than servicing their current customers. You say "I hope that as your relationship grows with us, you will understand our system (and it's limitations)". This seems unlikely when I have to come to Sitepoint to get explanations which your staff are unable or unwilling to provide.

For instance, first I was told that "[The order] was not removed from the recurring database because of your refund. We have just experienced a database problem which caused this transaction to be removed."

Then I was told, "The transaction was removed from the recurring database when the transaction was refunded."

So which is it? Moreover, prior to issuing the refund, I specifically asked PS support if doing so would cause the customer to be deleted from the database, and was assured that it would not.

As for your explanation above, I have no idea what "load up" means. Regardless, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the problem is that PS removed the customers without notifying me, causing me to continue providing my services to them under the assumption that they were paying for them.

I don't know what the situation is with the PaySystems control panel; I was not online at the time of your post but I have had no problems logging in from here. In any case, you are not losing orders when the control panel is inaccessible; they run on entirely different server systems...our processing server runs on the Akamai network (www.akamai.com) and has not been down for any significant amount of time since January 2003. If the control panel continues to give you problems, don't hesitate to send me an email so that we can resolve the problem.

I think it is important to clarify that it is not "my staff" that is unwilling to provide assistance. I am a Sales Exec. for PaySystems, and as part of my ongoing sales effort, I spend a lot of time at SitePoint. I have been asked to also provide support to clients in need where possible, and this is what I am attempting to do.

If you were told something by support and a different thing happened, I can completely understand the frustration. To clarify the semantics, customers are not deleted from the database when a refund is issued, but they are removed from the recurring engine. It is entirely possible that someone misinformed you, but it is also possible that there was a misunderstanding on one end or the other. I guess it comes down to this; is there anything that we can do for you at this point that will make you more comfortable? If there is, tell me...I look forward to working this out.

First off, why should I have to come to Sitepoint and talk to some spin doctor who doesn't know any of the specifics of my situation, when it's the customer support staff who should be answering my questions and solving my problems? It's too bad Paysystems doesn't pay you to service current customers, instead of hanging out here, lamely defending them.

Secondly, here's what PS's oh-so-helpful and accomodating Tech Support says about the problem of disappearing customers:

"When a client is removed from the recurring database by you or from www.mypaysystems.com, you will receive an email notifying you of the removal. However, if it is done by us, you will not be notified. We suggest you keep track of recurring transactions that go through to make sure only paying clients have access to your product."

This is the equivalent of a bank saying, "If you deposit a check that bounces, we won't notify you, and you'll never know unless you look at your account statement. And if you've already delivered to customer, tough titty."

So in sum, here's my advice to those of you considering whether or not to use PS: If you have nothing better to do that constantly log into the PS control panel (assuming you can get in) and scrutinize all of the transaction data to make sure that PS isn't killing your business, I think PS will work for you. If however you want a competent and reliable credit card processor whom you don't have to check up on every day, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

First off, why should I have to come to Sitepoint and talk to some spin doctor who doesn't know any of the specifics of my situation, when it's the customer support staff who should be answering my questions and solving my problems? It's too bad Paysystems doesn't pay you to service current customers, instead of hanging out here, lamely defending them.

Secondly, here's what PS's oh-so-helpful and accomodating Tech Support says about the problem of disappearing customers:

"When a client is removed from the recurring database by you or from www.mypaysystems.com, you will receive an email notifying you of the removal. However, if it is done by us, you will not be notified. We suggest you keep track of recurring transactions that go through to make sure only paying clients have access to your product."

This is the equivalent of a bank saying, "If you deposit a check that bounces, we won't notify you, and you'll never know unless you look at your account statement. And if you've already delivered to customer, tough titty."

So in sum, here's my advice to those of you considering whether or not to use PS: If you have nothing better to do that constantly log into the PS control panel (assuming you can get in) and scrutinize all of the transaction data to make sure that PS isn't killing your business, I think PS will work for you. If however you want a competent and reliable credit card processor whom you don't have to check up on every day, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

Spridel

At this point, I cannot see you accepting anything myself or anyone from PaySystems says, but I will say this:

If you create a psotback (which takes about 15 minutes), you will not have to log into MCC (most merchants log in once a day at the end of the day and take care of everything in one sitting.) because all transaction info will postback to the URL of your choice. ex: www.spridel.com/paysystemspostback Then, you can make things even easier by running a simple chron job that will check the info and relay it to you.

To address your scenario, if a customer comes to the grocery store and buys 50 dollars of groceries, and pays with a check... It is your responsibility if you decide to accept that check; the bank will tell you, "tough titty", if the check bounces and you do not see that person again. Payment is a significant portion of your business; managing it through the tools provided to you (MCC, postback) will make your business much more successful.

Again, if there is something you would like me to address concerning your account, let me know. My contact info including my direct extension is below.